Failure in the Eyes of your Mind
by Valaina Wynn
Summary: This was the day the UNSUB failed. He had been taken over by his mind, tried to kill a higher authority, and he failed. Miserably. One-shot.


**A/N: So, Criminal Minds! Gods, I love that show. But this is the first time I've actually attempted to write anything for it. This is a one-shot that I wrote earlier in the summer, but I hated it, so it stayed confined to the deep dungeons of my Microsoft documents. However, I pulled it back up after about two months and revised it. So now it only slightly repulses me.**

**Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Criminal Minds. If I did, Reid wouldn't forever alone.**

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Matthew Benson was afraid. No, scratch that. He was _terrified._ The FBI had finally found him, just like they had said they would on the television. That big shot BAU team from Virginia had wormed their way into the case, _his _case, and had somehow figured out everything about Matthew. He knew that because even before they knew who he was, they seemed to know what he looked like and what his 'personality' seemed to be. But now, thanks to good-for-nothing humans and their honesty and observation skills, Matthew was going to pay for his actions. They were coming for him. It was obvious, once that blonde talked on the news and his photo and name flashed up on the screen.

It was a mess; Matthew couldn't believe this was happening. He thought that he had covered his tracks so well, cleaning up after himself, supposedly leaving nothing behind. But it wasn't enough. He hadn't meant to kill all the people he did, but when he started, he just couldn't stop.

It had begun with that poor teenage girl in Boston. When Matthew saw her, it was like something clicked in his brain, whispering, "Do it. Do it." His body acted of its own accord. His legs moved him toward her as she walked down the dark, deserted sidewalk, presumably on her way home. His arms stretched out toward her throat, and his shaking hands wrapped themselves around her neck. She screamed. He squeezed. She went limp and crumpled to the concrete. Matthew couldn't believe it; he had just _murdered _someone! But the rush that had coursed through his body at the thrill of the kill was too much to contain. So he killed again. And again. And again.

And so the spree had begun. Matthew didn't just strangle people. He had killed one man with a knife, slitting his throat. Another victim, a middle-aged woman, was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat he had found lying around. Matthew roamed all around Boston, killing, he thought, at least ten people of all ages, races, and genders.

No matter who he killed though, the man couldn't rid himself of the feeling he always had ever since that first murder. The craving became so strong that it was painful, keeping him up at night. So Matthew sped up. He started killing two or three people a day, rushing through the Boston streets, killing people at random. A woman in an alley. An older man working in a drug store. A child walking home from school. Everyone he could get his hands on, and with anything he had. A bat, just like one of his other kills. A knife. A car. His own two hands.

But he had gotten sloppy. Left his knife at the scene. Killed in front of unknown witnesses in broad daylight, no less. One time, the victim hadn't actually died; So they had found him. The FBI, the BAU, the local police department. They had questioned the witnesses, talked to the survivors, and slowly built up a profile of his life. Then the hunt had begun.

And now he was panicking, crouched in the corner of the basement of his home with a pistol clutched tightly in his shaking hands. Matthew almost screamed when he heard the front door crash open upstairs. The unfamiliar voices yelled "FBI!" and they so very rudely rushed through his home, intruding on his personal things and searching for him. The creak of the basement door seemed almost deafening as it swung noisily on its rusted hinges. He crouched lower and readied his gun. Then he saw –and heard- them thundering down the wooden stairs with guns pointed in all directions. Searching for him.

The young, pretty blonde woman that had spoken on the news, with her long hair pulled up in a practical ponytail. An older brunette with lines beginning to carve their way into her face. A middle-aged man with black hair and a stoic expression, and a much older one with a salt and pepper beard. A bald black guy with an enraged look on his face, whipping his gun around the basement as he looked around the dark basement. But the last person to rush down the stairs was the one that really caught Matthew's eye.

A man, seemingly much younger than the others, with brown hair that curled around his ears and subtle fear that flickered through his brown eyes as he gazed into the darkness with his flashlight and gun drawn. With his sweater-vest and tie that showed out of the tops and sides of his bulletproof vest, he looked more like a teacher's assistant than an FBI agent. Just a really protected teacher's assistant. With a gun.

"Him. Kill _him_," the sadistic little voice in Matthew's mind whispered. He shook his head frantically, the pistol in his hand shaking even more. Shooting an FBI agent would almost certainly be considered a more heinous crime than killing civilians, at least in the eyes of society. And it would be so hard to kill the kid, with that vest covering all his vital organs. But maybe…

"It would satisfy you…" The voice was persistent, and probably right. "Killing a figure of authority, especially in front of all his teammates…it's _perfect_." And perfect it seemed. Matthew's mind was made up. He quietly and efficiently released the safety on the pistol as though he had done it a thousand times before. Leveled it at the young agent's forehead as he and his team members made their way slowly around the basement, searching for the killer…and the lights.

But his hand was shaking too badly. As he pulled the trigger, the barrel dropped until it was pointing at the kid's shoulder, instead. A loud _bang_! sounded as the pistol recoiled and the bullet tore through the agent's flesh, slamming the whole left side of his body backwards. Matthew watched as the kid gasped in pain and dropped his revolver to grab at his bleeding shoulder. Matthew cursed loudly and jumped out from his hiding place. He ran toward the dazed young man, planning to finish the job. But he had forgotten about the others in the basement. All at once, the basement seemed to explode in sound as at least two more gunshots rang out, one from the blonde woman and the other from the black man. Matthew felt sharp pains in his stomach and chest, and fell to the hard floor of his basement, his vision already blurring.

"This is it," the little voice whispered angrily to him as he lay bleeding on the floor, watching the team gather around their youngest member, whose shoulder was still bleeding profusely. He heard the relieved sighs of the people as they realized that their friend's wound wasn't fatal. The two women helped him up the stairs, trying to stop the bleeding with their hands as they went, presumably to find another agent or medical professional somewhere else in the house. But the last thing Matthew saw before the darkness at the edges of his vision claimed him was the furious faces of three of the federal agents, two he had seen and one stranger, all leaning over him as one of the blurring figures talked on his cellphone, trying to reach an ambulance.

"This is the day you failed_._" The pain in his chest suddenly increased tenfold, causing inky black to take over his sight. Matthew fell into an abyss of darkness, his senses slowly dulling.

"And it was miserable…"

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**A/N: Well, I hope you enjoyed it, dear reader.**

**For those who are waiting for new sonnets for When Heroes Fall, I'm working on some right now and they should be up soon. Probably not today, because I have to leave to compete in a marching band competition soon. But most likely before the weekend is over.**

**And for those unfortunate souls that have faithfully been waiting for another chapter of Hidden Threats, I am so terribly sorry! Time has been getting away from me, and I haven't even looked at the nearly finished next chapter. Soon, I promise you that.**

**Anyways, if you want more of these little one-shots, just click the little review button that's at the bottom of this page. In fact, you don't even have to leave a review.**

**Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. I always take requests.**

**~Val**


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